South Africa police standoff with illegal gold miners escalates
The police sealed off access to the Buffelsfontein gold mine in Stilfontein several weeks ago to deny the miners access to food and other essentials.
Gold vending machines are to be placed in every major city in Britain after the country’s first Gold to Go ATM was switched on in a West London shopping centre on Friday. The company behind the machines that vend a 1g bar the size of a cellphone sim card aimed at ordinary shoppers plans to install 50 across Britain over the next few years.
“It has not even started. The buying power of the smart money has moved into gold, but we didn’t see the normal consumer buying gold. We have yet to hit the record price from the 1980s,” said Thomas Geissler, CEO of Ex Oriente Lux, which are already turning over $52m/year from machines in the Middle East and Germany.
Mr Geissler said half the customers were ordinary consumers looking for gifts, pointing out that a 1g piece of gold was more interesting than a bunch of flowers “and would last for 4,000 years longer”. The other half were serious investors.
Image of the vending machine is courtesy of the Ex Oriente Lux.
